TWO young chess prodigies from Botlon School are proving it is not just a man’s game.

Sharon Daniel, aged 11, has been selected as the only girl in the England under-11 mixed team, and Mahima Raghavendra, aged nine, has qualified for the England under-11 team trial this year and will play for the England girls’ team.

Sharon, from Westhoughton, has been playing chess for three years. She will represent England in the European Youth Chess Championship in Montenegro in September and in the World Youth Chess Championship in the UAE towards the end of the year.

The Bolton School Year Six pupil is now among the best female players in England in her age group.

She has amassed 26 trophies and 17 medals, including the recent U11 Grand Prix, which makes her the 2013 U11 English youth chess champion.

Sharon has also won the UK Chess Challenge “mega final” in the U9 and U10 age groups, and has won the AJIS chess tournament for the past two years.

Sharon has been in the England girls’ team for three years and captains the junior girls’ school team.

She said: “I find chess incredibly interesting. Every game is different from the last one and you constantly have to create new strategies to win.

“I am very excited and happy to be chosen to represent the country. The fact that I will be playing in a squad where everyone else is a boy does not bother me at all.”

Mahima, also from Westhoughton, has only been playing competitive chess for a year, but last year she won the national U9 AJIS chess tournament, the UKCC “giga final” and was the best U9 girl in the British Chess Championships.

She plays for Atherton in the local chess league.

The Bolton School Girls’ Division junior team won the Bolton Chess League last year. Chess teacher Andrew Wilson said: “To have two England triallists from the same school is quite exceptional.

“Although fewer women than men traditionally play chess, I have been working hard for the past five or six years at Bolton School to ensure that the junior girls are as good as the junior boys and I am happy to say they are now at similar levels.”

The girls could follow in the footsteps of Bolton School old boy Nigel Short, now aged 47, who became the youngest international chess master in history at the age of 14 and went on on to become Britain’s strongest chess grandmaster of the 20th century.